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“I believe to this day that the fuel pump harness was unplugged,” he said in court.

On Day 2 of Mark Hunte’s fraud and mischief trial, four more people described how their GM minivans wouldn’t start, then were miraculously fixed by a friendly stranger for a price.

Fritzley owns a car repair business in Seaforth. Bedard asked him to look at her van after she was stranded in a downtown London parking lot after a London Knights game with her two daughters and three friends.

Her van wouldn’t start. Hunte came along and told her she needed new relay switches. He asked that she and the girls walk to his house with him to get parts. Bedard said no, and refused again when he asked if her older daughter would go with him.

Hunte said the parts would be $40 and left. He returned and performed his fix, borrowing a bobby pin from on of the teens.

Bedard paid Hunte $40 and left for home.

When Fritzley saw that the blue safety tab on the fuel pump harness was broken, he told Bedard to call police.

A week later, and after his father had figured out the scam, Williams left the Westmount movies again and the van wouldn’t start. He and his friends saw the man who had helped them the week before sitting in a silver car.

The car sped away, but Williams jotted down the licence plate number. He discovered the connector was unplugged.

Alan Chute and his teenage son found their van disabled in a lot at Wortley Rd. and York St. Chute, who has a mechanical background, said he was surprised when Hunte showed up in minutes offering help.

The next day, he noticed the harness had been tampered with. He went to the police.

Mark Hunte, 45, has pleaded not guilty to 42 fraud and mischief charges stemming from what the Crown says was a quick mechanical scam for money. GM minivan drivers forked over $40 to $60 each to a man claiming to be a mechanic after they found themselves stranded. The court has heard evidence that the vans could be easily disabled by unplugging the fuel pump harness connector, readily found under the van near the back of the driver’s door.